Family Tree – Traverse Theatre

This production, by Actors Touring Company and Belgrade Theatre Coventry, in association with Brixton House, is about Henrietta Lacks (played here by Aminita Francis) the African-American woman who was the unwitting source of the cancer cells now known as the HeLa cell line, the first immortalized human cell line and one which continues to be a source of invaluable medical data to the present day, from helping fight cancer, to HIV, to COVID. However, her cells were taken without her or her family’s knowledge or permission (they only found out decades after her death, and by accident) and continue to be exploited financially.

Henrietta was not the only black woman whose body has been exploited. In some cases, such as this, it was by the medical establishment with some kind of medical basis (another example of which is the full nervous system of “Harriet Cole” at Drexel University’s medical campus in Northwest Philadelphia). Other uses had no real purpose at all, such as that of Ssehura, also known as Saartjie “Sarah” Baartman, who was kept at the Musee de l’Homme in Paris until 2002, after which she was returned to South Africa after much legal wrangling, almost 200 years after she was taken from there to be publicly displayed for her unique physique.

The show concerns itself with this larger issue, paralleling Lacks’ story with that of Anarcha (Mofetoluwa Akande), Betsey (Keziah Joseph), and Lucy (Aimée Powell), three of the slaves which the so-called inventor of Gynaecology, James Marion Sims, experimented on and with to develop his technique for repairing vesicovaginal fistulas, (a severe complication of obstructed childbirth), as well as for creating several recognisable tools still used today, many of which are named after him. Though Sims and the many men who benefited from Lacks’ cells are absent from the show, they are represented through the presence of the Smoking Man (Alistair Hall), a stand-in for not only exploitative humans but also other forms of parasite, including illness. This is because the show doesn’t wish to immortalise these things, or dwell on the pain they inflected and continue to inflict (though these are not ignored either.) Written by Mojisola Adebayo and directed by Matthew Xia, this show is about forgotten legacy and the miracles ordinary people are part of.

A previous version of the show was done as promenade theatre, and a remnant of that remains in the set designed by Simon Kenny, partially natural with its rocks and tree (made to resemble a strand of DNA) but also clearly segmented into different areas, allowing us to follow the different strands of the story around as they leap from different historical moments and metaphysical plains, ending in a positive burst of dancing choreographed by Movement Director Diane Alison-Mitchell.

Adebayo’s poetic modern drama is stunningly brought to life through Xia’s direction as well as the set, lighting and sound (by Simon Kenny, Simisola Majekodunmi and Francesca Amewudah-Rivers), though the onerous is on the five-person cast, most of which have to play several characters in very different situations (the work of the Movement director clearly shows here, not to take anything from the cast) but also put the flesh back on these bones. Francis as Lacks is the heart of the show, while Akande, Joseph and Powell bring unique touches to each of their characters, making them not only unique and memorable, but real in every way they need to be.

Family Tree is a powerful exploration of a subject which, though it has got more topical in recent years, is still very much unexplored for many people. As a celebration and a commemoration, it is a complete success, which will entertain, enthral without seeming to teach, even though it probably will.

Family Tree is running at the Traverse Theatre until the 7th April. Tickets can be found at: https://www.traverse.co.uk/whats-on/event/family-tree

Reviewer: Oliver Giggins

Reviewed: 5th April 2023

North West End UK Rating: ★★★★★